Motivating & Inspiring Students. Robert J. Marzano
each student identify one thing he or she is grateful for and why. For younger students, provide examples to help model this behavior.
▸ Gratitude collage or bulletin board: Have students cut out pictures of things for which they are grateful and post them on a bulletin board or use them to create a class collage.
▸ Gratitude journals: Once a week, have students write in their journals about three things for which they are grateful and why. This strategy may lose its impact if it is employed more than once a week, as time for reflection is necessary to prevent repetitive entries.
▸ Gratitude letters for the community: Have students write letters of gratitude to others in the school. For example, students might choose to write to janitors, food service staff, other teachers, or administrators to thank them for their service. Teachers could also expand this activity so that students write to members of their larger community, such as firefighters, nurses, police officers, and so on.
▸ Gratitude paper chain: Give students strips of paper and ask them to write down one thing for which they are grateful on each strip. Have the class work together to create a gratitude paper chain and hang it somewhere in the room.
▸ Gratitude quilt: Give students square pieces of paper and ask them to draw things they are grateful for on their squares. Have students mount their squares on larger pieces of colored paper to create borders and assemble the squares into a “quilt” to hang in the classroom.
▸ Gratitude surprise sticky notes: Give students each a sticky note and ask them to write about something in the school for which they are grateful. Have students post their sticky notes in places where others will see them.
Clearly, a number of these strategies can be used quickly and without much setup. As such, teachers can easily incorporate them into class time as activities for free time at the end of a period or during transitions.
Mindfulness
A definition of mindfulness is a deliberate focus on thinking that results in intentionality. The premise behind mindfulness is that people are typically filled with so many thoughts and related emotions that they are often incapable of making the best decisions or noticing what is happening around them. Thus, the simple act of being more aware often increases their self-efficacy.
Mindfulness practice has a strong grounding in research on the positive effects of some forms of meditation. Meditation has been tied to improved academic achievement, with one study finding that 41 percent of students who participated in transcendental meditation experienced boosts in academic performance compared to 15 percent in control groups (Nidich et al., 2011). Additionally, meditation has been associated with better concentration and focus (Paul, Elam, & Verhulst, 2007; Travis, Grosswald, & Stixrud, 2011); emotional well-being, as students who meditated daily were found to have higher esteem and emotional competence than their peers who did not regularly meditate (David Lynch Foundation, n.d.); and reduction in academic stress, absenteeism, and negative or destructive behaviors among students (Barnes, Bauza, & Treiber, 2003; Paul et al., 2007). Meditation may also improve students’ physical health, as it has been linked to reductions in blood pressure and risk of cardiovascular diseases among practitioners (Tanner et al., 2009). Although not all mindfulness strategies involve meditation, both practices rely on similar mental dynamics.
Increasingly, mindfulness practice is being integrated into schools as more and more studies show the positive effects it can have on students. As an example, consider Visitacion Valley Middle School in San Francisco. Before adopting the Quiet Time program, an integrated mindfulness program that incorporates two fifteen-minute periods of meditation into the school day, the school struggled with disruptive and poorly behaved students, frequent fighting during the school day, graffiti, and continual confrontations between students and teachers (Kirp, 2014). However, after implementation, the school noticed a drastic change in students’ behaviors:
In the first year of Quiet Time, the number of suspensions fell by 45 percent. Within four years, the suspension rate was among the lowest in the city. Daily attendance rates climbed to 98 percent, well above the citywide average. Grade point averages improved markedly…. Remarkably, in the annual California Healthy Kids Survey, these middle school youngsters recorded the highest happiness levels in San Francisco. (Kirp, 2014)
The following list presents specific strategies from Patricia A. Jennings (2015) that allow teachers to incorporate mindfulness into their classrooms.
▸ Mindful listening: During transition times, engage students in specific listening activities that encourage mindfulness. It may be helpful to exclusively use a specific chime or bell for this activity. To begin, announce, “We’re going to do a listening activity that will help our minds relax and become more focused. First, let’s all sit up nice and tall in our seats with our hands folded in our laps (or on the desk). In a few minutes, I’m going to ring this chime, and we’re going to listen to the sound until it disappears. I find that I can focus my attention on my hearing best when I close my eyes. You can try that, but if you aren’t comfortable closing your eyes, you can lower your gaze to your hands.” After the students seem collected, ring the bell. Once the ringing has stopped, begin class.
▸ Mindful walking: During transition periods, instruct students to pay particular attention to the way they walk and how their feet hit the ground (with the heel, then ball of the foot, and then the toes making contact with the floor). Take the class on five- or ten-minute walks to break up instruction or when students seem particularly restless.
▸ Setting intentions: Instruct students to set an intention every morning, such as “I want to challenge myself today” or “I intend to make something positive out of something negative.” Throughout the day, ask students to recall their intention and assess the degree to which they have been honoring it.
▸ Three breaths: Use this strategy when it seems that students are anxious or need a break. Ask students to take three deep breaths with their hands resting on their chests so that they can feel their lungs fill with air.
These strategies can and should be adapted for different age groups. For example, instead of talking about intentionality with younger students, a teacher could start the day by asking students about the good things they hope will happen and what they are going to do to make them happen. At the end of the day, the teacher could ask students to reflect on the day to make connections between their actions and the events that occurred.
Rachel’s Challenge
A particularly powerful tool to help students experience a connection to something greater than self is the series of assemblies and workshops presented by Rachel’s Challenge. These programs center around the story of Rachel Joy Scott, the first student killed in the shooting at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, on April 20, 1999. The story of Rachel Scott provides compelling evidence for students’ most inspirational ideals, such as the belief that one person can make a lasting impact on the world. Furthermore, the presentations themselves use Rachel’s story as a vehicle to teach students directly about altruism, empathy, forgiveness, gratitude, and mindfulness.
Rachel’s Story
Rachel Joy Scott was a normal junior at Columbine High School. She had two older sisters and two younger brothers. She loved to journal and was the lead in the spring play. Like other teenagers, she experienced her share of struggles and worked through the mistakes of adolescence. However, Rachel was also exceptional in many ways.
At a young age, Rachel recognized the importance of her actions and lived every day with purpose. In an essay on her personal code of ethics (Scott, n.d.), Rachel articulated that she sought to be “honest, compassionate, and [look] for the best and beauty in everyone,” and this outlook informed her interactions with others. Because she was empathetic and recognized the value of kindness, she was known for her continual efforts to get to know and be kind to her peers, particularly those struggling socially. In the same essay about ethics, she also noted that while many